Legitimate and Inclusive Planning Education for Changing and Challenging times
University of Liverpool
Planning theorists and educators have long grappled with the issue of what gives planning and planners legitimacy to ‘pronounce’ on the forms and outcomes of development that serve the public interest. The current political and societal climate underscores the enduring relevance of such questions. The rise of populist and anti-truth movements in Europe and beyond presents particular challenges for professionals and their claims to possess forms of specialised knowledge. Planning issues can become strongly politicised and sucked into the arena of culture wars and societal discord. Meanwhile, urban and environmental trends, planning theories, and policy agendas at different scales require that planning works towards more inclusive urban and development agendas. Reflecting this conjuncture, the 2025 AESOP Heads of School Meeting in Liverpool will explore two key themes. Firstly, how planning education can contribute to fostering the legitimacy of planning and the planning profession in challenging and often fractious times. Secondly, how planning education can become more inclusive, both as regards the substantive themes it addresses and the opportunities it provides to learners to become future planners. The proposition to be explored is that these two themes are interlinked and strongly co-dependent and that striving to make planning education more inclusive is fundamental to renewing planning’s legitimacy.
Informed by the context and themes outlined above, the AESOP Heads of School meeting in Liverpool will seek to foreground teaching and learning initiatives that develop future planners’ capacity to work reflectively as practitioners in a world where dissensus rather than consensus around matters of collective interest often challenges claims for the legitimacy of expert and professional knowledge(s).
When: March 11(ExCo meeting), March 12 (CoRep meeting), March 13-14 (Heads of Schools Meeting and mobile workshops)
More info the upcoming weeks!
